Dollhouse

Gio Despotakis sat down and watched the opening episode of Joss Whedon and FOX’s upcoming series “Dollhouse”. Two and a half times. Well, it was the opening episode at the time we saw it - it’s possible it’s episode 44 in the running order by now. !SPOILERS FOLLOW!

We start at a picturesque snowy mountain ridge. There’s a log cabin looking house right at the top and the title of the show simply fades in on top of it. In said cabin, Lucy Lawless is having an orgasm.

Only not really. ‘Cause it’s not Lucy Lawless but Guest Actress X and she’s not having an orgasm but giving birth. Guest Actor Y (who I recognise but can’t place) is being cute and nervous about his wife while Eliza Dushku is doing stuff between wife’s legs. Only it’s not Eliza Dushku but a relatively upbeat young midwife who seems to be quite capable at what it is she’s doing. There’s some business with the baby girl having linebacker shoulders while GAX a narrow birth canal and Eliza and GAX having to work extra hard to get Linebacker Spawn of Lucy out safely. That culminates with Eliza telling GAX that when she’s got her baby all out and in her arms she’ll forget everything. “I want to forget!” goes GAX and that Eliza does…

In a neat effect we rewind the stuff we’ve seen along with some extra glances of baby being out and GAY holding her. And that was totally not on purpose. The images are all tinted with some extra blues, reds and purples and shift around as they rewind.

Eliza Dushku opens her eyes to find herself in a sci-fi chair/bed of brain erasure. Fran Kranz and Harry Lennix are standing over her. The former is wearing the standard TV geek uniform of short-sleeved patterned shirt over long-sleeved tee. The latter’s got on his ‘hardass with a heart of gold’ suit.

“Did I fall asleep?” asks Eliza. The others are like “Uh… yeah, totally”. Also, it seems Eliza’s named Echo. Well, duh. We know. It’s been all over the internet since late 2007! Another thing we’re not supposed to know yet is that Fran is totally Topher Brink, Head of (Brain) Programming while Harry is Boyd Langdon of the Overly Invested in the Dolls Division. It is also notable that while Eliza might be playing a human Doll, who gets manufactured personalities implanted into her brain, her breasts are fantastically real, judging by how they react to her reclining onto her chair/bed. So far so awesome.

Next thing we know Echo’s getting her grub on in a cafeteria area. An unsure Dichen Lachman sits down at the table with her. She’s gonna be Sierra. The two have a conversation about their day in overly earnest tones along the lines of:

Echo: I swam 20 laps today.

Sierra: Good for you!

Echo: I try to be my best.

Sierra: Are you?

Echo: Say what?

Sierra: Are you your best?

Echo: I’m sort of brain erased so I don’t really have a measure of relative comparison…

Sierra: Wow, me too! Except we totally don’t know that.

Echo: Right. I think trying to be your best is best!

Victor: Word. Also, broccoli is yummy.

Yeah. It seems Enver Gjokaj (to be known as Victor the Male Doll) has also sat down with them at some point in the conversation.

Topher and Langdon have been observing the Dolls from a balcony overlooking the cafeteria. They let us know that the Dolls are people who have supposedly volunteered for the job, and that while their brain wipes are definitely clean the particular three continually gravitate toward each other, having regular lunches together despite the fact that they have no memory of which to speak. They’re like, herding.

Langdon: They’re not buffalo.

Topher: They’re a little bit buffalo.

Us: Aw. Joss we’ve missed you.

Either before or after that we go by Olivia Williams’ office. She’s rocking a hardcore updo, a dark blue shirt with sheer sleeves and a figure hugging skirt in some weird textile-y fabric that I can’t recognise. All this is irrelevant apart from the fact that it needs to be pointed out how absolutely great she looks. She’s Adele DeWitt. She runs the Dollhouse, she’s British. That’s all else you need to know.

DeWitt (I don’t think Adele will be used that often when referring to her to be honest) is meeting with a business man in his 50s or 60s. He’s got a rough looking face, a Greek sounding accent and is a very well-recognised character actor who I once again cannot place. [Except some later research showed that he’s Tony Amendola who seems to have made his goal in life to appear in as many TV series as he possibly can since 1984]. Point is: he wants what he’s doing to be secret and he assures him that it will be except the agent who’s taking the job will need to know what she has to do in order to, you know, do it.

Before he has a chance to give in DeWitt gets a phone call. Her tone immediately changes and her confidence disappears upon picking up the phone. The unknown person on the other end of the line seems to be chewing her out. She keeps being apologetic and calling the person “sir” while her nervous hands play with an “Assignment ID” or something similarly named with Victor’s picture and a bunch of barcodes on it. There are also various surveillance photos of Tahmoh Penikett on her desk. She says They [the Dollhouse] should give [Tahmoh] an idea of what’s going on before he starts making up theories of his own. Unknown Person seemingly approves this then totally hangs up on her in the middle of a sentence. DeWitt is disappointed but Brits it up. She offers up a drink to Rough Greek Businessman and we’re out.

And straight to a posh bathroom, unless I’m much mistaken, where we find a dolled up Echo (no pun intended) in black mini skirt, red frilly top and leather boots. She is fluffing her hair and repositioning her boobs, for optimum bra support. She slips a tube of lipstick in one boot and purses her lips in front of the mirror in satisfaction. She could totally be Belle Du Jour’s new best friend for season 3 if you get my meaning… She looks like a ho is the point, just in case you don’t. “Blue skies” says Ec-Ho.

In the lounge of a posh hotel the bathroom we just left seems to be situated in, Ec-Ho is occupying a couch, writhing on top of an attractive horny young gentleman. He’s quite enjoying himself and is dressed in a very Cocky Rockstar kinda way. Ec-ho downs her drink in one gulp, cherry with the stem still on and everything, while another two gentlemen look on from their easy chairs. One’s a Dweeby Bespectacled Guy in his 40s while the other’s younger, probably early 30s, late 20s. It seems he’s the same age but Not As Conventionally Attractive as Cocky. He’s all “If I knew Uncle [Probably RGB] would get a hooker that’s Dushku-Hot I’d be getting married too”.

Eventually a beefy but sweet-looking security guard comes to chase the party away. Ec-Ho’s gotten to a point where she’s squealing at everything like an overexcited chihuahua. The guard offers a bottle of champagne as an incentive for the foursome to head up to their suite. Cocky ups the bid to two bottles. The guard agrees to it and the Four go, with Cocky and Ec-Ho making a spectacle of themselves, all climbing on top of a buffet table on the way out and such. Ec-Ho’s swept off her feet by Cocky. Only not, ’cause her name is now Taffy.

Smash-cut to Taffy running down a hotel corridor. She’s got blood running down one side of her lip, she’s crying, her mascara’s run and she’s screaming for help. She bangs on various room doors. Behind her Cocky and Conventionally turn up, hot on her tail, each with a bottle of champagne in hand. Their shirts untucked and the have blurry expressions on their faces. Taffy runs into the guard from before and clings to him asking for help saying that the guys hurt her. They guys are all “whatever, duder” and wander off.

The guard runs a shaken Taffy through the hotel kitchen. She just wants to go, she’s not supposed to be there. The guard takes her to an electronically locked door. She protests but he punches in the code and in they go. Taffy knows what she is and what she does but those guys were out of line. The guard seems to not be as sweet as we once thought as he locks the door and slowly moves about the office ignoring Taffy’s protestations. The vibe has shifted uncomfortably. He unlocks a safe and… offers her up 1000 dollars to sign a disclaimer saying she will not sue the hotel. Oh. What?

Taffy does not give a crappity-crap, the assholes can go suck a goat for all she cares, she just wants to get outta there… buuut the door is locked. The guard tries to get her to reconsider. You can get a lot of mileage out of 1000 bucks. You could go anywhere. You could be anyone you want to be. Taffy has a moment’s hesitation. She rests her bag on the desk where the money is, about to pocket it, but snaps back. Turning around to go she knocks the money on the floor with her purse. The guard bends to get the wad of cash and– Taffy knees him in the face! Oh. What?! She makes a call giving directions to the office she’s in along with the door’s code and hangs up. “Blue skies!” says Taffy, deploying her jazz hands over the fallen guard. That!

Dollhouse - exclusive set photo

Commercial.

Back from the break, Taffy’s pulling another transformation. She’s letting her hair down and she’s ditched the frilly red shirt for a form-fitting black one and a pair o’ leathah pants along with her standard boots of ass-kickage. She’s cleaned the mascara and the blood from her lip but the cut it came from doesn’t seem to have been faked… Taffy’s joined in the office by the threesome of Cocky, Conventionally and Dweeby from before. Turns out they’re heist partners and -wait for it- this is a heist! They’ve been hired by someone (everyone who thinks it’s Rough Greek Businessman raise their hands) to… we dunno. Yet. We do find out that his has been designated as a no-kill job by the person who hired them when Conventionally wonders about the guard’s “Still-Breathing” status. Taffy’s just used a syringe of something to keep him down. She gets all up in Conventionally’s face about it too. She learned from a previous (her first?) job where she took too much initiative to not do that if she wants to get paid. Also: to wear comfy shoes. No she really does say that. And she’s got him pressed against a hard surface at the time. And is squeezing his cheeks in a menacing way.

At this point the question on everyone’s lips here would seem to be “Faith, is that you?”. Everyone that is except for Cocky who asks her out for after the heist. The answer to the former question is “kinda yes, kinda no”. The answer to the latter doesn’t matter. Taffy also verifies, at Cocky’s querying, that her name remains the same despite the change in demeanour.

In heist-related news Cocky’s, the explosives guys and Conventionally is the surveillance guy. Cocky’s got the wall wired with plastic explosives while Conventionally’s checking for the guards on his computer via tracking devices that have been placed in their badges. It seems the team’s going into the high-security building that is located next to the hotel. I also seems the neighbours are meant to be updating their security in x seconds and that gives the team a Grey Hour (Thursdays on ABC?) in which to sneak in while the fort’s defenceless, something about irony, blah-blah-blah, time-limit-precision-cakes.

Conventionally: Shall we synchronise our watches?

Taffy: Oh, honey. You’re on Taffy Standard Time.

And so, boom goes the dynamite.

Next door, our fearsome foursome find a shitload of works of art from various eras. So, Conventionally asks, are they stealing Art? Actually, Dweeby clarifies one particular painting costs 7 gazillion dollars and happens to have been stolen from its rightful place. Conventionally changes his question to enquire whether they’re stealing back stolen art. Who knows? Or dares to dream, really? Taffy kinda knows. There’s some business with Taffy comparing herself to Bonnie and Clyde in order to explain why she’s Team Leader without Sarah Jessica Parker or Brooke Shields or someone having picked her. She’s not about being known (like B&C were) but rather about being the best. She can do without being killed, thank you. As far as she’s concerned they can forget her once the job’s done. Like she wasn’t even there.

Faith… uh, sorry! Taffy. Taffy tells us all this while she’s sexing up a huge safe door. Good for Faffy.

Meanwhile Tahmoh Penikett a.k.a. Special Agent Paul Ballard is entering his house. He’s holding his side in obvious pain, and goes to settle on the couch in discomfort. He’s got a paper pharmacy bag with some sort of pain prescription in his hands. He suddenly goes perfectly still and because this is not an episode of House but rather Joss Whedon’s new sci-fi action adventure show he does not go into a seizure. Instead he pulls out his gun and turns to the French windows in a swift move. He was right and, from the shadowy curtains, Victor emerges. Remember? Victor the Male Doll? From Victor’s very convincing Russian accent however I would not think that’s the name he’s using at the moment.

Victor got in due to Ballard’s shitty locks and then there’s some stuff where Ballard doesn’t wanna trust Victor ’cause last time he did he got shot for his troubles and here’s where I thought what I was watching might not have been the actual first episode. In retrospect this is a very concise way of getting Ballard into the story without picking the plot up from the point where he gets involved with the Dollhouse for the first time… but this is unfortunately the hardest strand to follow.

The Echo/Taffy plot goes quickly too and there’s a whole bunch of twists in that but at least we’ve had some time to get our heart rate up by the time the really big stuff goes down. Here, with Ballard and Victor, there’s a problem. If this storyline had more space to develop it would drag and detract form the point of the episode. As it is, we open in media res while in media of another bunch of res and it’s just a teeny bit too sudden. Still, a TV-trained viewer will be able to fill in the blanks and whatever anyone may say about Whedon shows, they tend to respect their viewers 9 out of 10 times. Or 6 out of 7 seasons. However you prefer to put it.

So, back to the scene: Victor’s some kind of informant, the Russian mob is involved and Penikett gets to show up Dushku by performing some of his own face-squishing stunts on Gjokaj. Only he uses a gun instead of his hands. And -what’s this?- he’s got another prop. A picture of a preppy looking Echo, with straight hair, whom he refers to as Caroline (I think). It seems that Caroline-I-Think’s been missing and Ballard’s looking for her. Victor claims not to know her and eventually convinces Ballard to help him. Ballard orders him to stay put at the house while he does what he does, and Victor’s left to ponder the décor. I’m a-pondering whether Caroline’s the volunteer that became Echo or just another implanted personality. And, what’s more, who is it that wants her found?

Across town (or whatever) Taffy’s getting the safe open and sends Dweeby, who she dubs Old Stuff Expert, toward the old stuff for him to exercise his expertise. She hands him a piece of paper with a pencil rendering of an Ancient Greek looking frieze. And yes, I am sort of cheating here, but I also happen to be Greek and did recognise the image. So, long story and bragging short? They’re stealing the Parthenon.

I’m having some trouble with the order of things here. I’m sure there was a break in the above scene after the Parthenon line so maybe the Ballard scene came at this point and there wasn’t a break for the safe-breaking before? There might even have been another scene with DeWitt and RGB, earlier on but after their first one, that verifies that they’re going forward with the heist before we know what the heist is. I can’t be sure. I am sure however that the following is where the act break comes.

Conventionally is kinda freaking out about the whole Parthenon thing. Isn’t that kinda big? Bloobety-blee-blong, Elgin marbles. Are they stealing back for the Greeks? Is it a no-kill job to avoid international incident? Not really. They’ve only been asked to get a particular piece of frieze (that pictured in the drawing) for reason’s unspecified. Dweeby ejaculates all over the statues in the safe as he’s explaining this. He finds the piece and surreptitiously wraps it up, places it in a bag and, pulling a double cross, goes to run out with it. Conventionally makes an attempt to stop him but gets stabbed in the gut with what looks like a fire poker for his troubles. Dweeby OSE escapes locking the other three in the safe. They’re all pissed off but not to worry: Taffy’s got the skills to get them out of there. She only has to make a call.

Cocky: You get reception in here?

The call turns up to be to Langdon who is in a stakeout-type van. Langdon asks after her. Taffy lets him know what happened, that she can get out and asks him to finish the job for her by apprehending Dweeby OSE. ‘Cause if the job’s not finished there’s no point in her getting, out after all. Got it? Five-by-five. Only not. ‘Cause right before they hang up a staticky sound comes over the speaker and Taffy’s face goes blank. She drops her hand to her side, the phone dropping to the floor right after. Taffy: “Did I fall asleep?” Wait, let me rephrase that. Echo: “Did I fall asleep?”

Act Two! Out!

Upon our return Echo’s near catatonic. She’s hugging herself tightly, as close as she can get to the foetal position while sat trapped in the middle of a locked vault with an increasingly agitated Cocky and Conventionally bleeding-out. Rocking back and forth she repeats her eternal question “Did I- Did I fall asleep?” Dushku rocks this. She tries to be her best. As I’ve said before the way she plays Echo’s naivete and childishness might grate with some people but at this point Echo’s so confused and lost and just plain fucked up. And if Dushku plays one thing well that’s being broken.

Naturally, the other two Stooges are not feeling too calm. Their exit strategist has decided to take up thumb-sucking at a most unfortunate time and that’s not of the good. Cocky tries to sweet-talk Echo at first, telling Taffy that the drink they were meant to have cannot be had unless they escape. He quickly loses patience and slaps her, hard. I don’t think it’s presumptuous to surmise that the cut Taffy had on her lip was also of his doing. Not that she didn’t most likely literally ask for it in order for the plan to go forward, but I digress. Point 1 is: episode’s brilliant at making points when not actually pontificating, as we will soon see. Point 2: the Stooges are fucked.

Hey, Topher! What are you doing at your office at a heisty time like this? It appears he is giving a shopping list to a Patently Cute Lab Assistant and using his intellect as an argument for why he should be allowed vast quantities of junk food. He came up with the Doll software, he is the great and wonderful Topher who, fine, will get some juice boxes for nutrition’s sake but should never otherwise be doubted! He has a plan. He is breaking PCLA down to build her back u- Oh fuck. What’s going on with Echo’s brain scan tracker thing?

Topher barges in DeWitt’s office where she’s chillin’ with her assistant (? colleague? sex slave?) Laurence (Reed Diamond). Topher’s in a tizzy about Echo’s stats. DeWitt’s all British and calm. Laurence is also very stiff-upper-lip though not actually British. The Taffy personality should not pull a hissy when faced with the stress of a heist, counters Topher. He wove more than one strand of unflappable in Taffy! DeWitt is the one who should not be calm right now! No one should! They’re in trouble! There was a staticky sound at the end of her call. And she’s not picking up now. It means Echo’s been wiped! Remote-wiped! And that’s not even supposed to be possible! DeWitt stops being calm but remains British.

Meanwhile, at the Safe of Stooges, Cocky is pacing and trying to figure something out. Conventionally is bleeding, as is his wont. While Echo’s stuck observing a cubist painting of a green woman. Taffy and Conventionally have a Deep Conversation about what art is and what is supposed to do and I gotta admit I did not find this gripping any of the two times I watched it and fell asleep at the third. It’s very Discovering Art History and a bit too glaringly meta for my taste so… The green cubist woman’s broken, Echo’s broken, Conventionally is dying and art is meant to show us who we are? I dunno. I was dreaming about sausages.

The sci-fi chair/bed of brain erasure (and more) reclines upward (is there a word for that?) bringing Sierra into frame. She’s wearing heavy eye-liner, a form-fitting shirt, leather pants and boots - all in black. Topher’s there for sure, maybe DeWitt as well but I’d just woken up so it’s a bit fuzzy. The scene does close with Sierra telling us: “blue skies!” because it’s not Sierra any more, it’s Taffy.

Back with the Stooges, the Echo of Taffy is now sitting next to Conventionally (still bleeding). They’re looking at a painting of a snowy mountain ridge. Echo likes the sky. It’s blue. Yeah, Ally says, she mentioned it. Ally’s still monitoring the guards on his laptop. He’s even got special skins for them so that they look like dragons. This was mentioned earlier but only becomes important in a bit. He also stops Echo from deploying a smoke grenade she thinks is a toy. That might also be important. Cocky wants to get out and is turning into an increasingly large dick about it. I mean yeah Cocky we get it but it’s not like anyone in there has the knowledge to get you out without setting off the alarm.

Taffy on the other hand does. She gets over the fact that DeWitt and Laurence gave her assignment to “some other” girl who’s now paralysed with amnesia-inducing fear in the vault she was supposed to handle herself! She learned from a previous (her first?) job where she took too much initiative to not do that if she wants to get paid. Also: to wear comfy shoes. But as long as she gets the same cash sure she’ll walk the crazy girl out to the best of the nimrod’s abilities.

Lachman has some trouble making the Taffy way of speaking seem natural but really it should be excused. Dushku’s had way more practice. What’s more, the show makes up for it and for the relatively clunky, yet absolutely necessary, verbatim repetition of phrases by the fact that during this high-stakes heist plot it shows the tragedy of Dolls in a fuller way than any conversation about art could ever manage. Sierra as Taffy acts and speaks as if she has a continuous life. An utter lie and the same time real in that it is her reality. As far as she knows, as far as she can see, as far as she can understand she’s gonna do the job and get paid. She’s the best there is at what she does. She gets to calling Echo.

At some point DeWitt’s called Langdon, thinking he knew what had happened. He didn’t. She backtracks and hangs up, but he’s already got Dweeby OSE in his van of surveillance. Langdon asks Dweeby to instruct him on how to get to where Dweeby last saw Echo. Dweeby is reluctant at first sighting bad memory. But a clunkily worded death threat is enough to get the Dweeb sketching.

Taffy keeps calling Echo’s cell while blathering about what needs to be done (the safe’s door has got a glass pane in it which mustn’t shatter but only fracture for the alarm not to go off) and counting down the time that’s left in which to do it. A tense sequence of cutting between DeWitt’s office and the vault later, Echo does manage to pick up her phone. Taffy immediately instructs her to find a tube of liquid, probably in her bra – which Echo does. Likewise a tube of lipstick should be in her boot – which it is. Only the lipstick isn’t lipstick but a vaporiser (ooh) and the tube of liquid is glycerine (right?) and the two can be connected (for sure)!

Echo is further instructed to use a drill to open a hole on the safe door and stop when Taffy tells her. They’ve come down with heist equipment so Cocky hands her a drill. She places her phone on the floor and Cocky picks it up and holds it for her. Then drill she does.

Next she’s supposed to spray in three doses of glycerine which will somehow make sure the glass pane doesn’t shatter all the way and while I did buy it when seeing it there’s no way I’m gonna manage to sell this to all y’all. Echo sprays thrice. Taffy instructs her to put the drill back in but not move her hands at all. Echo moves her hands. Lights turn blue. Alarms sound. Cocky crushes the phone in anger. Dragons are coming.

Taffy hangs up. It didn’t work out. DeWitt sends her off with her metal briefcase of cash. To be brainwiped. Laurence the possible sex slave is instructed to send someone to possibly take Echo out as she’s most likely been compromised. But not Langdon, DeWitt specifies. She’s beginning to think he’s gotten too invested in Echo. DeWitt is sad but still British.

Meanwhile, Cocky’s been barricading the vault with any work of art he can move around on his own. Ally teaches Echo to lift her hands in the air so that the dragons don’t shoot her in the chest. Ally’s gonna go out quietly, using some of the sedative that Taffy used on the guard to knock himself out so he can die in peace. Cocky grabs the syringe, stopping him then goes on to grab Echo. What with Echo being done with her surrender seminar Cocky can now give her a shooting shit lecture. He puts a gun in her hand and instructs her to open fire when the dragons rush in.

Langdon’s in the hotel kitchen. He’s finding his way to the guard’s room.

In the vault the shit is about to hit the fan. The dragons are coming and Cocky wants Echo to open fire first. Or he’s gonna be shooting her. Always simple and straightforward, that Cocky. It’s at this point that something takes over. Be it Taffy, Caroline, or Echo’s pure survival instinct she eyes the aforementioned syringe and stabs Cocky in the neck with it. He falls to the side of the barricade and (inadvertently?) opens fire on the incoming guards. Ally reacts to this rather snappily for a dude who’s been bleeding for something close to what seems like an hour. He deploys the smoke grenade that Echo was toying with before, urging her to get away. The message seems to get through.

Langdon finds the electronically locked guard room. He eyes the lock. He eyes the corridor. He shoots the fucker. The fucker being the lock. He surveys the room. The guard’s still passed out on the floor, there are bricks from the explosion lying around. After a beat Echo comes stumbling in through the hole in the wall. Only she’s not alone. She’s got Ally slung over her shoulder. She seems to recognise Langdon but not in any warm way, just as someone familiar. Ally’s broken, can they fix him? Langdon’s all “sure” and goes to help her out of her hole. She refuses and does it on her own. She’s not broken.

Break.

Victor’s been waiting at Ballard’s house all this time. Ballard comes back and basically tells him to sod off. While he was out he made sure that Victor would go on everyone’s shit list. He’s not helping him. Let the Russians have Victor! Or whatever his name is… After all he’s Agent Paul ‘Failure’ Ballard, no one will think twice if his CI is found dead. Victor is very upset and leaves reluctantly telling Ballard that Ballard thinks he won’t care if something happens to Victor but he will and that is in fact his problem.

I did not exactly get what the scene is telling us the story is, either. But don’t worry this is what happens. I just wonder what it means for Victor’s future as a Doll if his face is well-known and well-associated with this here persona that was used in the Ballard case. Also: Gjokaj’s really, really good. It seems the words of praise he’s been receiving by his colleagues in most of the Dollhouse articles so far have not been exaggerations. Also 2: Gjokaj and Penikett totally have sibling noses.

Back to the B-plot (’cause that was one before was C! Get it?) DeWitt marvels at the fragment of frieze Langdon retrieved mentioning that Michaelangelo thought his works were already inside the marble for him to release. What that has to do with the Parthenon you’re gonna have to ask my friend Adele ’cause I sure don’t get it. She dispatches Laurence to deliver the piece to their client who, unless I’m much mistaken is never explicitly identified as RGB. She also throws in Dweeby OSE as a gift-with-purchase at Laurence’s prompting.

Laurence exits for Topher to enter, again, in a Tizzy. I have a feeling Topher will often be in one of those. This is a more subdued kind of Topher Tizzy than before. It’s a Tentative Tizzy in fact. Topher tests the water by saying that Victor’s been debriefed and ready for wiping. Or maybe that’s DeWitt. Or even Laurence before he left? I really have no idea at this point. It is a fact though that Topher has verified Echo’s remote wipe. And that’s not supposed to happen. So what gives? Topher will tell you what gives. It’s Alpha isn’t it? He’s alive. Isn’t he? He’s the only one who could even remotely pull a, uh, remote wipe off. Right?

DeWitt’s enjoying what seems to be a scotch, straight, by the way. Adele don’t need no rocks. She cools her own drink. She calmly shifts a couple of pages of paper Topher’s way and asks him to sign and initial them. He’s shocked. Is he being fired?! Topher, darling, it’s the first episode, what do you think? He’s not being fired. Rather his clearance is being upped. Because he is right.

It takes all of Topher’s willpower upon processing this to not pee his pants at the thought. He is terrified at the prospect of Alpha being both alive and free. Alpha supposedly died after some “incident”. Oh, vague naming of important events you sci-fi staple you! So not only did said “incident” not manage to off Alpha, but the Dollhouse people have been concealing the fact. He’s out there with the gifts they gave him and according to the Aviation alphabet (as people all over the internet have figured out already) he is the first of the bunch, which both puts Echo quite early in the doll sequence and most likely means Alpha has an arsenal of experimental prototype abilities in him. DeWitt remains British. Good for her.

Echo’s in the chair. The neat effect takes away all her memories from Langdon picking her up all the way back to the remote mind-wipe. Because, remember, Taffy was erased by Alpha. Echo: “Did I fall asleep?”

Under Sia’s cover of The Pretenders ‘I Go To Sleep’ -and sorry for going on about this but it was AWEsome- Echo goes into the communal co-ed shower area. Wrapped in a towel she runs into a likewise clad Sierra who’s exiting the showers. They exchange warm smiles. The kind of warm smiles that don’t belie a smidgen of knowledge of what their day entailed and I’ll stop here with that point ’cause it’s better that way. Echo washes off.

After her shower Echo goes to a mirror where another male Doll is moisturising. I didn’t think that Dolls would have tattoos. At least not in between missions. But I am glad they moisturise. They’re job must be a bitch on the skin! Echo stares at the foggy mirror. She draws an open-topped oval in the condensation with her finger. She adds another two, smaller, closed ones - eyes. Then a mouth. We see her features reflected in the bits of mirror that her lines have cleared. The focus shifts for a full shot of her face. Her lip is still cut.

And we’re out again. For now.